


Helping Hands

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:23:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Neville finds him in the greenhouse.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34
Collections: Anonymous, Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Helping Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohdeariemegoodness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohdeariemegoodness/gifts).



In the soft filtered sunlight of the greenhouse, Neville can pretend he’s fifteen and his gran is alive. He can transfer mandrakes wearing fuzzy earmuffs and pretend he doesn’t know what risking his life is like, can even—

he needs to talk to McGonagall about that. Insane, endangering third years with screaming pants, letting them fly thousands of feet in the air and letting them freefall, teaching them to brew potions that can kill. Slowly, now, the wizarding world is warming up to the idea that maybe children’s lives shouldn’t be risked quite so casually. But that’s because people have started to speak up. The mandrakes, he thinks, willing himself to remember. 

There was the article in the prophet— _POPULATION CRISIS?_ _Childbearing Age Wizarding Population Reduced By 30%_. He wonders what the scream sounds like, in the second before you—it’s morbid curiosity, not a fantasy. He isn’t like Harry, who Gin tells him sometimes has isn’t so sure he’s glad to have survived the war. Neville’s glad he survived. Or, well, he’s certainly glad he didn’t _not_ survive. 

He sits back on his heels, looks up at the sky through the sloped paneled glass rooftop, and sighs. He can’t forget, it turns out, can’t pretend. Can’t escape the post war day-to-day, in which everything feels crashing down all at once or suspended in amber in rapid turns. He lays back on the solid earth of the greenhouse, and decides today will be an amber day.

Around three o'clock, though, he has to drag himself up to face the music. Today, the music consists of career meetings with Professor McGonnagal. He walks up the steps of hogwarts, through the great hall, up one staircause and then another, until he gets to the statue of a centaur in a hallway on the fifth floor. “Sugar Snail," he tells it, and it lifts its right hoof to knock on the wall next to it, just once, before the wall opens up around a tall redwood door. Behind it, she sits at a small sitting table, her desk behind her. It's warmer and more comfortable that he thinks of her being, but he supposes that someone like harry or hermione might think her kind, warm even. Do you have any plans after hogwarts?” she asks. The air in the room feels still. Neville looks at dust illuminated by light coming in from the north tower window so he doesn’t have to look at her face. He just got back here. Seventh year was shit, the years before it not much better. Two floors down is the room where Alecto Carrow forced Ginny Weasley to curse him. He should want to get out of here, to make a life for himself far away from this place, to forget, or at least to move on. He doesn’t want to. Hogwarts is his home. He doesn’t want to go back to (place). 

“I don’t know. I think I’m just going to focus on finishing up my studies for the time being.”

There’s a pause, and he knows she’s looking for the right thing to say. Eventually she says, “okay Neville. We’ll meet again after the first semester and talk more about options for after school, okay?”

“Er, yeah, okay,” he says, and leaves.

He sees the disarray, first. Greenhouses house a lot of soil, but there’s not supposed to be dirt spread around like this, haphazard. His first thought is that it’s been torn apart by death eaters, death eater wannabes, rioters, scavengers, what’s the difference. But when he follows the damage (he cut the head off a part of Voldemort’s soul, he can handle intruders, and if he can’t—), he comes to a crouched over figure, a black clothy lump topped with straw. He feels silly. This is Hogwarts, of course there aren’t intruders in the greenhouse. Hogwarts is always safe (he tries not to remember all the times it hasn’t been).

“Malfoy:” He’s wondered, since it’s over now, since it’s all over, if they shouldn’t try and use first names, but hell if he’s going to.

The head turns up, face pale, dark circles, hair with a distinct lack of shine.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“It’s important,” says Malfoy, and Neville honestly can’t tell if his voice is disdainful or not.

“If you need plants for potions, you can put in a request and we’ll—”

“No,” says Draco.

“What?” asks Neville.

“I just need to grow this,” Draco pulls back and reveals a seed the size of a large hen’s egg, which he’s stuffed in a pot far too small.

“Well, you won’t get far in a pot like that,” Neville says.

“Are you just going to stand there judging my herbology skills or are you going to show me what to do, then?”

It's characteristic, Neville thinks, that even asking for help he'd be insufferable. But Neville isn't like Harry or Ron. He's more like Hermione, who always ends up doing half their homework for them, even though they're arseholes to her. No one's ever asked Neville to do their homework, for obvious reasons. 

He should say no, but it's not in his nature, and he's trying to be civil, now, anyway. That's the thing they're touting. Post-war civility. Right.

"For starters, you need something with no holes in the bottom. And soil that's more acidic."


End file.
